Regarding the breastfeeding questionnaire Debby is designing for her
NICU Moms I have a couple of suggestions:
  1. the questionnaire shouldn't take more than 20 minutes to fill
out tops, it is worthwhile to pilot your questionnaire on a small sample
first so that you can see how long it takes to fill out and whether
your questions are written out clearly or not. When they aren't clear
people end up ansering a different questin than we ask and the information
is not useful.
  2. Sometimes you have to ask a question in more thanone way in a
questionnaire to get an accurate read on the inforamtion you want to
gather.
  3. Be clear for yourselves about what infomraiton you want to gather.
The more clear you are on ehat you want to know, the easier it will
be to ask a series of questinos that elicit that information.
  4. It may be useful to include questions about how much time the Moms
spent with their babies on an average day. Breastfeeding is an intimate
activity and it is very hard to let down to a pump, especially
when the baby is first born and especially when the baby's health is
compromised and you're not sure how much to attache yourself to this baby.
I iamgin this is especially an issue in a level 3 NICU.
  5. Other questions shoulb probably eleicit information about the
breastfeeding and general patient education they received from nurses
and physicians as well as what kind of support they felt they
got from hospital staff.  I'm sure you have already thorugh of amny of
these questions.
  Hope this is helpful. Good luck and let us know what you learn
     Naomi Bar-Yam PhD